Cheryl Cole: 'The Flood'

Popstrel, TV personality, hoofer, hawker of hair dye, style icon (soz Jules!), role model, confidante to both Simon Cowell and Nicola offa Girls Aloud, Cheryl Cole has many strings to her perfectly-formed bow, but balladeer? Not in a month of two-hour-X Factor-live-final Sundays!

Or so we thought until we heard 'The Flood'. Co-written and produced by her 'Promise This'/'Fight For This Love' collaborator Wayne Wilkins, it's a chunky midtempo pop ballad whose two-count-'em-two choruses burrow deeper into your brain with each listen. Cole's no Leona of course, but she more than holds her own vocally as she delivers an extended and just-slightly-strained love-as-h20 metaphor. At this rate, you wouldn't bet against her emerging from the Kodak Theatre some time in February 2020 clutching one of those iconic shiny gold chappies.